penmanship publishing group

Books by the top performance poets in the country

Friday, January 07, 2011

Guerilla Marketing - We Go Hard

It was a Monday night. The room was dark and bodies posted like shadows were wavering the grounds at Bar 13. I cannot remember the exact moment the Afro-ed lady walked up to me, but what I do know, is that my life was never to be the same. "I hear you'd make a good intern.",she exclaimed with a great amount of certainty in her voice, "My name is Mahogany L. Browne. Michael Cirelli told me all about you. Meet me Tuesday at the Starbucks on 59th street. All of the details will follow. Come alone." A cloud of dust replaced her body and all of a sudden she was gone.

Tuesday night, I entered the Starbucks a nineteen year-old wreck of nerves. The young man at the counter silently motioned his index finger to the back of the store. "We've been expecting you", he whispered. When I opened the swinging doors, Mahogany was standing there, and in her hands were two books. "In my right hand, I hold an empty sheet of paper. In my left hand, I hold a copy of my latest book, "Dear Twitter: Love Letters Hashed out in 140 Characters or Less". One will make you an intern. You will promote Penmanship Books authors via Twitter and Facebook, learn survival skills in midst of the guerrilla marketing jungle, and best of all, receive free books. The other will do nothing. It will be as if this never happened. Choose wisely."

I am sitting at a desk somewhere in the West Village. My laptop is opened to www.penmanshipbooks.com. I am holding a copy of "Dear Twitter" in my right and a press release in my left. I receive a text from Mahogany at 12:54 PM. "Welcome to the family."